Saturday, April 10, 2010

The kitchen sink would not stop smelling of mold. Washing the dishcloths, liberal applications of bleach, nothing helped. Months of this. Finally nailed it down:Do you see that knurled cap on the bottom? It's made of some kind of soft plastic that mold loves to grow on. This pic is of a Scotch-Brite dishwand, but I have seen the same thing marketed under the O-Cel-O name, also. (Both from 3M, so no surprise there.) It never occurred to me that mold would be growing on plastic. Replaced it with another brand with a hard plastic endcap, and no more mold stink in the sink.

Gripe number two:

I do like a big, shallow skillet. A 12" or 12.5" skillet is just right for a three-egg omelet, which can then be split between oneself and one's companion, at about 1.75 egg for one and 1.25 egg for the other. A French company called T-fal, or Tefal, makes skillets that seem like they would really fill the bill for this job. I have owned three of them. Why three? Because they start to warp right away. They get high in the center, so that if what you are cooking is more or less liquid, it takes on a ring shape, like this:

I dropped that egg in the middle of the skillet. It did not stay there. If you do omelets the right way, with the back-and-forth shake to distribute the egg, this warp produces voids in the middle, so that you have to turn the skillet so far on its side that you risk spilling the whole thing on the cooktop. The next big, shallow skillet will not be a T-fal.

Disclaimer: I have not been paid in cash or in kind to endorse these products.

Hi, I've experienced the same problem with my skillets, too, but I decide to correct it in a unique manner. I took a block of wood 2x4x6-8 inches long (about) that I found in hubby's garage. I set the skillet on hard,smooth surface, placed the block in it and pounded the surface center until it was flat again. This works well and lasts for awhile. I just keep the block in my kitchen drawer under the stove until it's needed again. Works perfectly.